


Standing at the Mouth

by soroga



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, The Cave, Trauma, Wool's Orphanage (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 08:08:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21250163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soroga/pseuds/soroga
Summary: "There’s a cave right below us. You can see the entrance if you lean over the edge of the cliff. It looks rather large."Let me go, let me go, Amy thought, but she could say nothing."I wonder what’s in it?" Tom asked the air, and that was the only warning Amy had before they were falling, falling –





	Standing at the Mouth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Charientist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charientist/gifts).

It might never have happened if Dennis hadn’t taken Amy’s hair slide. 

It was a simple wooden slide, big enough to hold almost half of Amy’s hair, and the only one she had. A couple who had been thinking of adopting her had given it to her, just one of many small presents they rained down on her alongside their promises. But they had changed their minds, and most of the presents had since been nicked or bartered away or broken. Amy had only kept the slide, and she’d used it to carefully pin back her fringe in the morning right before they’d set out to the seaside.

But that had been hours ago, and her slide had gotten loose enough for Dennis to pluck it out of her hair without it catching. He’d waved it around in her face as a taunt and then run away. Amy’s only choice had been to run after him. It wasn’t as if Mrs. Cole would do anything about it, and while Dennis wasn’t spiteful enough to throw it into the sea, there was every chance he’d break it through sheer carelessness. 

So she’d chased him around the cliffs, sure if she gave him his bit of fun he’d give it back, and hadn’t realized how far they’d gotten from the rest of the group until she’d tackled Dennis into the ground and noticed that she couldn’t hear anyone else, not even Eric, who Amy was fairly certain could normally be heard on the other side of London. 

"Where is everyone?" She asked Dennis as she stood, hair slide in hand.

"They’re down a ways," said a voice that wasn’t Dennis’s, and Amy whirled around to see Tom Riddle standing there, smiling. 

Amy sometimes thought of him as "Tom Riddle," even when the only thing she ever called Martha was Martha, and she couldn’t say why. But there was something strange and distant about him all the time, and it only seemed more apparent when he smiled at them, friendly like he never was except when he was lying to someone. 

"Look, see?" He continued, and Amy did look and see. Down a ways on the steep, craggy shore, Mrs. Cole was talking sternly to Billy, probably for getting too close to the cliff again, and behind her were more of the others. Amy thought she saw Jane shove Eric, but it was too far to be certain. 

"Oh," Amy said. She felt Dennis crowd around closer behind her.

"Aren’t you going to say thank you?" Tom Riddle said. When Amy kept standing there silently, his face twisted into something ugly. "_Say thank you._"

He said it quietly, but he might as well have shouted for the way it seemed like his voice rang out, filling the air all around Amy. "Thank you," she found herself saying, and then she looked away, uneasy for some reason. 

"Amy, let’s go back," Dennis whispered. Amy nodded.

"Come on, Tom," she said, meaning to go past him to return to the others. But her legs locked up, and she fell down onto the cliff, smashing her nose and knees against the rock.

The sudden, sharp pain on her face made her vision go strange for a second. When it was normal again, she realized Dennis must have fallen too, because she felt his weight on her calves. She tried shifting him off and getting up again, but her legs still weren’t working. 

Nothing was working. She couldn’t move.

She heard footsteps coming closer, louder and louder, until Tom’s polished black shoes crunched to a stop right by her head, where they were barely visible out of the corner of her eye. "But I don’t want to go back," Tom said. Amy heard the smile in his voice, this one nasty and genuine. 

He was doing this somehow. Amy knew it, even if she didn’t know how. But that didn’t help her. She tried to turn her head, thinking, _Mrs. Cole has to see_. But how could she? She wasn’t looking at them, and even if she did, all she’d see was Tom, alone on a cliff. 

"I saw something interesting while I was walking around earlier," Tom continued. "There’s a cave right below us. You can see the entrance if you lean over the edge of the cliff. It looks rather large."

_Let me go, let me go_, Amy thought, but she could say nothing. 

"I wonder what’s in it?" Tom asked the air, and that was the only warning Amy had before they were falling, falling – 

She was standing in front of a great lake, so deep the water looked black in the darkness. Dennis grabbed her shoulder, and she grabbed him back, clutching desperately at him as if they were bosom friends. Her hands and feet hurt like she’d been clambering over rocks, but she hadn’t, had she? She couldn’t remember. 

"Oh!" Tom Riddle said behind her, and she jumped, shuffling together with Dennis towards the water. But the two of them were ignored utterly; Tom only had eyes for the cave. And it was a cave, Amy saw, now that her eyes had adjusted to the darkness. A great, big cavern, bigger than the orphanage, that sprawled in all directions. Amy didn’t know which direction would lead out, so instead she kept inching away from Tom, hands still desperately clutching Dennis’s. 

"It’s even bigger than I thought it would be," Tom said. He picked up a rock and hefted it casually before throwing it in their direction.

Amy and Dennis scrambled backwards, until Dennis tripped on something and they fell together, Amy’s elbow ending up in Dennis’s stomach. She felt Dennis’s breath get knocked out of him, but Dennis didn’t shout, silent as death beside her.

The stone sailed harmlessly past them and into the lake. One skip, two skips, three skips – then it sank, disappearing into nothing.

Tom clucked his tongue. "Not my best effort," he admitted, his bashful smile sitting wrong on his face. Then he dropped it, and the cold expression that replaced it was much more natural. "But that’s not what we’re here for." 

Amy stayed on the ground, staring up at him. She couldn’t move, and she could no longer tell if it was because of Tom or because of her own fear. 

Tom picked up another rock and crouched in front of them. "I wonder," he said to Dennis, "if I gave you this rock and told you to beat her face in with it, would you do it?" 

Dennis trembled against her and said nothing.

"You would, wouldn’t you," Tom said. "Just like the climb. I don’t even have to train you. Whatever I tell you to do, you’ll do it. You’re just like the animals." Excitement had come over him like a fever, and his words streamed out all at once, as if he was too eager to think about what he was saying. "No. You are animals." 

Amy felt tears slip down her cheeks, and against her will, her mouth sagged open to let her gasp for air. And still she didn’t make a sound. 

Tom watched her, fascinated. Then he reached out towards her.

She flinched, but all Tom did was take the hair slide out of her grip and replace it with the rock. 

"Stand up," Tom Riddle said.

She stood. At her feet, Dennis stared up at her, wide-eyed and still shaking.

"Lift your arm and grip the rock tight."

She lifted her arm and gripped the rock tight. Dennis was crying silently now, tears streaming out of his terrified eyes.

"And..." 

Tom came up behind her. She felt his presence as one felt a cloud cover the sun, a sudden wave of coldness spreading over her. He leaned in close, so close she could feel his smile against her ear, and said, "skip the rock across the lake." 

Shaking, terrified, relieved, Amy skipped the rock across the lake. It managed a single skip before sinking down into the dark where it would never be found again. 

Dennis was crying even harder, face red, snot pouring from his nose. Amy wasn’t. She just kept shaking as Tom grasped her by the shoulders and gently turned her around until he could look into her face. 

The weight of his attention could have crushed her. Instead, it held her together, pinning her in place when she felt as if she might float through the ceiling. _Thank you,_ she would have said if she could talk, so dizzy with gratitude she thought she might fall over.

Tom must have seen it on her face, because he smiled, satisfied, and then slid one hand down her arm, holding onto her like they were friends. With his other hand, he put her hair slide into his pocket.

"Now," he said, "let’s climb back, shall we?" 

Mrs. Cole was completely out of sorts when they reached her, already sour face twisted into something worse. "Where on earth have you children been?" She asked. "Amy, what happened to your nose? And Dennis, your face!"

"They got into a bit of trouble playing too close to the edge of the cliff," Tom explained smoothly. "I was able to help them get out of it."

Mrs. Cole’s eyes darted to him, then away, as if she couldn’t bear to look at him for too long. They ended up focusing on Amy. "Amy, is this true?" 

Amy opened her mouth, but no sound came out.

Tom was watching her with a little half-smile on his face, and suddenly Amy knew that he wasn’t stopping her words any longer. And Amy knew with just as much certainty that it didn’t matter. For as long as she lived, she would never be able to speak about any of this.

She nodded, hand reaching out to find Dennis’s. But Dennis flinched away.


End file.
